The Armchair Empire - Features: While You Were at E3, I was Getting Myself into the Record Books

Other nifty gaming events in the shadow of E3.

Newsletter

Be notified of site updates. Sign-up for the Newsletter sent out twice weekly.

Enter E-Mail Address Below:

While You Were at E3, I was Getting Myself into the Record Books

While many gaming journalists make annual trips to E3, I am a little different. While I’d love to go to E3 every year, I don’t always have the resources—especially considering that I’d have to travel over 3,000 miles from my New England home to California. Instead, I travel to Weirs Beach, New Hampshire to participate in the annual Funspot / Twin Galaxies Classic Video Game Championships. For four days each year and up to fourteen hours each day of competition, gamers travel from as far away as Illinois, California, and even sites abroad like England and Finland to try to break existing world records on arcade games dating as far back as 1975.

The arcade game collection that Funspot sports is remarkable. There are many recognizable titles, including favorites like Pac-Man, Tempest, Wizard of Wor, Galaxian, Mario Bros., and Track & Field. Funspot also has many other games that may not be as familiar to younger gamers, but had their fair share of popularity in their time. Wheels, a monochrome driving game released by Midway back in 1975, always seems to garner a fair share of attention every year. While the “cow-in-a-can” engine sound may get grating after a short time, players are still challenged by trying to avoid oncoming traffic while racking up average scores of 700 points or better. Sea Wolf, a submarine shooting game from 1976, has a periscope controller and tests players’ timing. Vanguard, which first hit arcades in 1981, allowed players to fire from four different sides while trying to avoid enemy ships, missiles, and other obstacles. In all, there are over 125 different arcade and pinball games from 1975-1986 – widely regarded as the “golden age” of arcade gaming – for players to choose from every year.

Twin Galaxies is the officially recognized recordkeeping source in the video gaming arena. Headed by Walter Day, this group receives countless submissions every year in order to build and update the video gaming record books. Walter flies to New Hampshire every year to witness history in the making. Each year, old records are broken, new records are set, and Walter is there to acknowledge these feats in the annals of video gaming history. Walter is flanked consistently by Gary Vincent, who not only is the Operations Manager for Funspot, but also serves to witness high scores and is more than an avid gaming fan himself. Gary’s staff at Funspot also assist in the witnessing, logging, and entry of thousands of scores over the four-day event.

In 2000, I first attended this competition, and it was a humbling experience. I thought that I’d have little trouble toppling world records on Track & Field and Hyper Sports—two Konami button-mashers that I’ve had much success with in the past. Once I saw what the records were, and what the official settings had to be at in order to qualify, I was quickly brought down to Earth. Even on a lesser known game like Mania Challenge, which was an early wrestling game released by Taito in 1985, a score of 195,000 points – which I thought was pretty impressive – was nowhere near the 1.22 million point record that would be set that same day.

Advertisement

My 2001 trip to Funspot earned me my place in history. I was the first person on record to score over 10,000 points in Sea Wolf. In fact, the whole game had to be witnessed because the score rolls over, or resets to zero, after 9,900 points. I wound up with a best effort of 10,800 points, which earned me recognition for setting the mark in Twin Galaxies’ press release regarding the event. I had also come away with a much-improved effort on

Advertisement

Mania Challenge, scoring over 720,000 points. My exploits on Track & Field also garnered attention from several of the other competitors. While I wasn’t anywhere near the 96,000+ point overall record, I managed some stellar results in certain individual events, including running the 100m dash in less than 8.20 seconds and achieving a hammer throw of over 99.50 meters. During that same event, nine other world records were set by other players, including marks on Carnival, Wheels, Tapper, Wizard of Wor, Food Fight, and four other titles.

So, what about this year? Well, I didn’t manage to score any better on Sea Wolf, although my 10,200 point effort was the tournament high score on that game for the event. I came very close to eclipsing the 90,000 point plateau on Track & Field, which would have been only the second time in the four-year history of the event that it had been done. I played a few new games this year, including Vanguard (on which my 140,000+ point effort not only was a tournament record, but ranks #2 in the world), Venture (which was a lot harder than the Colecovision version), and Alpine Ski (a “simple game” which challenges players to simply get down as many hills as time allows—but it’s far from easy). The highlight of my weekend came on Saturday, when I set a new world record… on Mania Challenge. After over three hours on one token, I racked up 1.24 million points and became a multiple world record holder. There were a few other highlights this year, including a vicious thunderstorm which exploded a transformer just outside of Funspot which cut the power supply for a while and destroyed Funspot’s internet connectivity. Wheels was rolled over for the first time in the game’s 27-year history. A father and son duo from Illinois smashed the world record on Wizard of Wor. New records were also set on Burgertime, Jr. Pac-Man, Mappy, and a lesser-known title called Spectar.

This tournament is fun for a number of reasons. It’s a reunion of sorts for some of the best arcade game players in the world. It gives players on any skill level to test their muster on a wide variety of arcade games. Funspot’s collection of restored games from the “Golden Age” is not only cool to look at, but it inspires many to say, “I remember that!” – and they play just like you remember them thanks to hours of restoration work by Funspot’s staff. Sure, I would have liked to have gone to E3 this year, but the experience of participating in an event of this magnitude and having the opportunity to take my place in the video gaming record book is one that I’ll always treasure.

- PeterJ. Skerritt, Jr.

(June 5, 2002)